Richt makes case for indoor facility

Posted: Wednesday, September 08, 2004

By Marc Weiszermarc.weiszer@onlineathens.com

As Georgia's football practice fields were soaked by heavy rain and wind gusts blew from the remnants of Hurricane Frances, Bulldog players and staff boarded buses on Tuesday for a two-hour roundtrip drive to the Atlanta Falcons' indoor practice facility in Flowery Branch.

If ever there was a day for Georgia coach Mark Richt to make a public pitch for Georgia to have its own indoor practice facility, this was it as the Bulldogs prepare to open their SEC season Saturday at South Carolina.

"It would be nice to have an indoor facility, there's no doubt," Richt said. "I think it's going to happen one day. ... Right now on my list of things, that's No. 1 right now."

Richt spoke in detail about a comprehensive facility that he said would include an indoor track and would benefit other teams and the band during inclement weather.

It would include a weight room on the bottom floor, administrative offices on the second floor and a third-floor dining hall that would be part of the university dining system.

It could be years before such a facility comes to fruition.

Georgia athletic director Damon Evans, trying to bring down $92 million worth of debt, said there are no concrete plans in the works for an indoor facility and offered no timetable for a facility to be built.

"I think it's important for us as an Athletic Association to be somewhat sensitive with regards to what's going on in the total university in regard to budget cuts," Evans said referring to a possible $16.3 million state funding cut to the university. "At the appropriate time, we'll make the necessary decision whether we move forward with an indoor, multi-purpose facility. That's something that needs to be discussed at the board level with the President and the Board of Directors."

Georgia, Florida and Vanderbilt are the only SEC schools that do not have indoor facilities.

South Carolina has an indoor facility with a 50-yard synthetic turf field.

"It may not be what they'd like," Evans said. "but I bet it's better than what we've got."

Georgia's football team usually practices in the Ramsey Center, a student-athletic building on campus, during inclement weather but the building is not suitable for a Tuesday practice when the Bulldogs have a full pads, contact practice.

"It's full pads and we need to get better in fundamentals," Richt said. "If we had to spend today and tomorrow in the Ramsey Center, we wouldn't get better. It's early in the year and we need to get better. It's extremely difficult to get better if you can't get out on the field of play."

Safety Thomas Davis said: "It's tougher because of the surface. You're playing on a wood floor and you can't really practice on that."

Athletic officials considered an indoor facility more than four years ago when Jim Donnan was coaching the Bulldogs. The pricetag then was in the $25 to $30 million range. The cost now would be significantly higher especially with the scope of the project that Richt talked about.

"As you look out from the dining area, you could look out of big glass windows right into the facility and I think it could be used for gameday activities, for indoor tailgating," Richt said. "If you had some parking in the right spot, you could also help some of the parking problems we have. I think there's a lot of great uses for that. ... My guess is the university could use some more dining facility area."

Georgia has already gone forward with a host of projects totaling about $55 million in recent years that have benefited the football program including $25 million to add the Northside Upper Deck, $17 million for new concourse and concessions area in Gate 6 and $8 million on new Sanford sky suites. The football team also got a new locker room in Butts-Mehre that cost $2.5 million and practice fields were improved and lights added at a cost of up $2.5 million.

"We've made some pretty strong commitments to football," Evans said.

There are other priorities as well. Evans would like to refurbish 40-year old Stegeman Coliseum in the future.

"If $100 million fell out of the sky that would make it really easy," Evans said. "If you have those two facilities, looking at which one you would do first is going to be based on what is the most pressing need at that particular time."

Depending on the weather, Georgia could make the drive again to Flowery Branch today. The team practiced there for the first time last month.

"It's just a little bit of an inconvenience having to drive up there," center Russ Tanner said. "It's nice to have a place like the Falcons have so we can get up there in bad weather and still get the work in there that we need."